


To My Enemies

by i_found_a_spoon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon Compliant, I'm at the combination angst fic and romcom, I'm not sure how the vacuum of space works and at this point I'm too afraid to ask, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26731186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_found_a_spoon/pseuds/i_found_a_spoon
Summary: The five times Kallus helped lead a rescue with the Ghost crew, and the one time he was rescued by leading his own ghosts.Kallus confronts the people he once knew during his time in the Empire, and figures out how he should address his now enemies.
Relationships: Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios
Comments: 23
Kudos: 107





	1. Ketsu

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all remember in the third season of Avatar where Zuko goes on a life-changing field trip with everyone? Yeah, that but make it Star Wars Rebels.

The sun rose across Yavin 4, lighting the early morning dew of the jungle aflame against the sky. The Rebellion never slept it seemed. Someone was always moving crates or returning from a mission that had long since been successful. The different cycles of planets across the galaxy kept them spaced out in schedule - the different circadian rhythms of aliens kept them awake better than any shifts the Empire had ever established. 

Alexsandr Kallus walked to his shift early in the morning. By the Rebellion’s standards, he would be early, but by years of Imperial training and conditioning, he was always late. 

“Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable.” The passage from the Imperial Handbook he once swore by echoed through his ears. It hadn’t gone away once he’d defected. He wished it would. 

But it made him a better worker here, because he understood his enemy better than any of his coworkers ever would. Even if they hated him for what he’d done to them, or their families, or the friends. He would be lying to himself if he managed to think he didn’t deserve it. 

Kallus tried to stray away from those thoughts. For now, he would focus on the task at hand. Get to intelligence, find the morning briefing, get started. Take in the sunrise while he could. He took a breath in, feeling the warmth across his cheeks. Despite being a jungle planet, Yavin was surprisingly cold. The early morning sun was a welcome adversity to that. 

He swung out the datapad from his belt as he entered the inner hanger of the temple, away from the soft morning light. Kallus didn’t know how long intelligence had worked from the innards of the forgotten temples of Yavin. For all he knew, they could’ve set up seconds before he’d arrived nearly two weeks ago. Some of the power converters surely behaved like it. 

Sitting down at his ill-fashioned “desk” of a crate, he plugged his datapad into the main computer, adding new shipments to charts he’d been following. He enjoyed the relative quiet of the room as the night shift changed to the morning shift, and his coworkers filed into the room. 

Draven filed in about three whole minutes late, Kallus noted with discontent. He didn’t understand how people were late here. They all lived on base. Everywhere they sat, stood, or ate they were five minutes from being in intelligence. Star Destroyers were tricky things, but this molding temple seemed to be child’s play to him. 

He sighed and returned to his work, so tangled in his web of information that a commotion at the front of the room almost didn’t grab his attention. 

Almost. But the young Mandalorian Sabine Wren was hard to miss. Her explosive attitude was certainly something he’d looked down upon when he was chasing the Spectres to the edges of the galaxy, and evidently it rubbed some of the more rebellious intelligence agents the wrong way as well. 

“I’m _telling_ you, _Draven_ , she’s missing, and she’s important to us-”

“Important to you. The Rebellion can’t afford to track down every missing bounty hunter on this side of the galaxy.” 

Kallus turned his attention to the conversation. He’d done enough work to allot himself a break.

“You just don’t think she’s worth saving, do you Draven?”

“Sabine, that’s General to you, and we just cannot allocate resources at the moment. You know that.”

Kallus scoffed internally. Maybe the department couldn’t, but he could find a single bounty hunter in ten minutes. Give me half an hour and he could have all the door codes too. He understood outwardly how Draven could deny the girl’s request, but internally he questioned it. The last year had ingrained that process in him, with thanks of course to the people that stood before him. 

Sabine turned away from Draven as if to leave, fuming. She whirled back around again, holding her hand out. 

“Are we not the people who are supposed to help out when people go missing? Who are you to decide who we get to save from the Empire’s slavery?” With that, she turned to the door, storming out of intelligence. 

The relative silence resumed. A light beep, the shift of fabric against the metal of the crates. Draven stood by the main table, examining data. 

Kallus took all of this in, looking around the room. He mulled over the work he’d gotten done since the start of the day. It was enough. He pulled the cord that linked the datapad to the main computer, and headed out into the hallway. 

The difference in the hallway was stark. Here, sounds from the hangars were allowed to ring out freely, filling his ears with sound. Sabine would head to the Ghost. She was mad, she was looking for a way out, and she had to find… Someone. Kallus realized with a hitch in his breath that he didn’t even know who he was looking for. Or where. Or why, to be exact. He just had to find Sabine. 

The Ghost sat on the edge of the main platform, away from most of the ships that needed repairs. Kallus was in time to watch a swath of purple and pink anger storm into the cargo hold. He hurried across the platform, dodging various pilots and mechanics. He stopped himself at the edge of the hold, deciding if it wasn’t his place to go inside. He opted to knock on the landing gear instead. Sabine appeared at the top of the ramp. Her expression darkened. 

“What do you want, Kallus?” She folded her arms across her chest, leaning against the hull.

Kallus looked down for a second, grabbing at his datapad. “I’m here to help you find that bounty hunter.”

Sabine looked surprised, shifting from against the wall. “So Intelligence sent you after all?”

“Yes,” he lied, looking to the side. 

“Do you really think you can find her?”

“Within half an hour, most likely.” Well, provided that he could find out the bounty hunter’s name. And where she’d last been sighted. And what prison she was being held in, and the codes and all. Kallus trailed the list on in his head. 

“I’ll get the Phantom II prepped then. See you in a bit.” 

Kallus tried to make a trailing remark, but found his hand waving at the air. He swallowed his comment. He mentally made a list of people that might know who he was dealing with, excluding a particularly stone set general. He glanced down at his datapad, scrolling down a list, barely noticing a form come up behind him. He nearly jumped when a familiar voice broke his concentration from behind. 

“So you’re the intelligence agent Sabine managed to rope into finding Ketsu, eh?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.” He looked up from the datapad to face Zeb. 

Of course. Ketsu Onyo, the bounty hunter that thwarted his efforts to prevent Phoenix Squadron from refueling. She’d turned his divisive victory into an astounding defeat. Well, victory for him now? Kallus wasn’t sure. He was still trying to work out the conflicting details in his head. He was sure Ketsu would be less likely to see his actions as their victory. He sighed. 

“So have you found the prison barge yet? Sabine gathered they’d be headed towards the Hosnian system, but I told her they’d hang around the Inner Rim for a while longer.”

Zeb definitely hadn’t been at the top of his list for gathering mission intelligence, but Kallus quickly promoted him in his head. If they were headed to the Hosnian system from the inner rim, they were taking the Corellian Trade Spine, a well travelled hyperspace lane. The patrol was routine. Kallus had travelled on it many times himself. He smiled. 

“In my experience, I’d say you’re right. They’d want to do a few more pickups in the inner rim before heading in.” 

Zeb broke out into a big, toothy grin. Kallus didn’t mind choosing sides between the Spectres every once and awhile. Not when the reward was seeing his friend smile like he’d just gotten the perfect sabacc shift, or something within that nature. Zeb rubbed his hands together. 

“I suppose it’ll be awhile before you’re back then.” 

Kallus considered the jump. A trip to the Hosnian system did take a while, but if they could catch the transport somewhere in the inner rim, it would only be a day or so. 

“I’ll need to run the calculations again. With the transport on the move, we can’t be sure.” He knew that Zeb was worried for Sabine. He’d processed enough of the situation that he knew that Hera hadn’t approved this rescue mission, so Sabine had taken it on herself. She couldn’t take anyone else from the crew. 

“I’ll cover for both of you then I guess.” Zeb blinked slowly, crossing his arms. “I’ve been meaning to go out to do some exploring of the jungle and all, so I guess you two will just _have_ to come alone with me.” He smiled. 

“Well, I’ll send you my comm messages that say I accept then.” Kallus would have accepted anyways. Hands down. He didn’t admit to himself that he’d rather be spending time trekking in the jungle with Zeb. He wasn’t ready for that yet. He just smiled, and turned to the ship when Zeb pushed back from the ramp and sauntered back to the mechanics bay. 

He met Sabine in the Phantom II, already halfway through the prisoner barge logs where Ketsu had been transferred. Sabine didn’t look up, dead set on the controls. Kallus sat in the back, reading through codes that they’d need once they’d gotten aboard. Docking codes were easy, scrambling the signal wouldn’t be an issue, but convincing the guards that an ex-imperial and an angry teenager needed to take a bounty hunter out for a walk in the park? That’d be an issue. 

“Have you found her yet?” Sabine’s voice shook Kallus. He looked down at the data compiling. 

“I know where the ship is, and where it’s going to be.” He stood up, walking over to the front of the ship. “You’ll want to head to these coordinates.” He turned back to the benches at the back of the ship. 

“You know, Kallus, you can sit in the co-pilot chair.” Sabine punched in the coordinates he’d given her. 

Kallus spun around, settling into the chair. He brought himself back into the intelligence logs, looking for the numbers that indicated he’d been right to track this bounty hunter across the universe, angry Mandalorian in tow. 

The silence settled between them nicely, clouds of hyperspace flying by. 

Sabine interrupted their comfortable quiet only once. 

“Thank you, Kallus.”

“For what? Doing my job?” He’d scoffed.

“For the opposite.”

___

The Phantom II exited hyperspace just above the floating mass of the prison ship. It hung derelict in the upper atmosphere of some planet Kallus had read but not committed to memory. 

Sabine let out a breath. From here, the ship looked just like another asteroid orbiting the belt, old, grey, lifeless. They both knew it would prove anything but. 

“Shuttle one five one one I’ve got you coming in on my scope. Processing your clearance codes now.”

“I don’t suppose you had any sort of plan coming into this?” Kallus let go of the receiver and turned to his unruly co-pilot.

“Oh I’m certain I can handle this one myself, Kallus. You just stay with the ship and pull off when I tell you to. Got it?”

Kallus rolled his eyes. “Sabine- “ he started, with an exasperated sigh before being cut off sharply. 

“Kallus, I’ve done this more times than you could count. Don’t start with me.” Sabine snapped. 

He closed his mouth, not wanting to argue with the obviously obtuse teenager. He leaned over to the captain’s chair as she started picking up the explosives she’d packed. Thermal detonators, the powder she was fond of drawing with. Kallus raised an eyebrow. 

“Sabine, if you just blow up the carrier, you risk more lives than just your own. The Empire will call for reinforcements.”

“They’ll be getting what they deserve. Not that you would understand.” She stormed out, opening the back door into the airlock below. 

Kallus stood, words escaping him as the door closed. The words stung. He understood her sentiment but most of the people on this ship would be laborers, or even more of a stretch, people just trying to get away from their old lives with the Empire. Did she see his empathy as a weakness? Were the workers here still not people they were trying to spare?

Or was that just his Imperial mindset talking. His attachments showing through. His true colors coming out of the woodwork to sabotage missions, to ensure that Sabine would fail.

He sat down with a huff, staring into the vast expanse of space. It had been nearly a year ago when he’d gone down to Skystrike Academy, managing to give Sabine and the other pilots a window to escape through. At the cost of losing one of their friends. Kallus shook the explosion of the TIE pod from his mind, and stood from the seat. He turned to the back of the cabin, going in after Sabine. 

Red lighted alarms greeted him as he stepped through the airlock, blaster out. The familiar sound of the klaxxon rang in his ears, deafening him to the softer sound of his footsteps. Stunned stormtroopers littered the path of Sabine’s anger. He followed them carefully, turned corners with military precision, until he caught the lilts of Sabine’s voice between the blaring of the alarms. 

“I said-” A step forward, alarms hiding his gait. “Release her-” Kallus could see the two pilots clearly now. “Or I’ll-” Twin blasters blazing, grenade in one hand. It was clear what she was planning on doing. 

In time with the next blare of the siren, Kallus stepped forward in one fluid motion, first stunning the two pilots at the front, then grabbing the detonator from Sabine’s hand to disarm it. He rolled down to avoid her subconscious retaliation, and stood up near the console to start splicing the prisoner’s codes. 

“Hey! What was that for?” Sabine rubbed her arm and bent down to grab the detonator from the floor. “We need them to put the codes in for Ketsu’s cell.” She crossed her arms, tilting her head to the side.

“Wel, we could ask them,” Kallus paused, typing in the last few lines of data, “Or we could just do this.”

Alarms around them froze. The lights flickered back to the sterile white Kallus was used to, and the ship diagrams around them flickered from gray to green. He waited a moment for Sabine to process what he’d just done. 

“You freed them all.” Her eyes grew wide as she approached the boards. 

“Well, among other things. I figured the rebellion could use a ship of this size and since this one is conveniently off the Empire’s grid now…” He trailed off. 

Noise rustled behind them. Kallus whirled around to knock one of the pilots on the back of the head. He turned back to Sabine. 

“Alright then. You can go find Ketsu and get us into hyperspace. In the meanwhile I can find a suitable airlock for our guests here.” He nodded, lifting the pilot he’d just knocked out by the waist. 

Sabine smiled. “Right on, Captain.” She mimed a salute, and hurried off through the corridors. 

___

Two escape pods, a handful of thankful mercenaries, and one “that took you long enough” from Ketsu later, the ship was in hyperspace once again, with a warning beamed to Rebel command that they’d be coming in with a stolen ship. 

“Wouldn’t want them shooting up our new ride, eh Captain?” Sabine had leaned back in her seat at the helm after locking in the jump coordinates. They were headed to Seelos first, to drop a few less enthused bounty hunters and merchants, Ketsu included. Wolffe and Gregor seemed pretty excited about a new person to beat at Sabacc, and nobody seemed keen to take that away from them.

“Well, at least not before you can do something about the wretched gray paint job the Empire seems to enjoy so much.” Kallus gestured to the inside of the sterile white space they inhabited. 

Sabine sat back, supposedly imagining the possibilities of the walls. Kallus turned back to the controls, triple checking the coordinate data. 

Had he gotten lucky this time? The ship had fallen into their hands with relative ease. The security system was simpler and easily untwined, as the older models usually were. 

Had he been going easy on the Imperials? He wanted to watch the Empire burn as much as the next person, truly, but what made him want to stop Sabine’s rampage today? Was it empathy for them? He hoped it wasn’t. He’d managed to unpack a lot of the things the Empire had made him think, but empathy for others in his position wasn’t one he’d thought to examine. 

The troopers on average believed in the cause. The higher ranks moreso, and as you climbed the ladder it was everyone. He had ensured that. ISB did compliance checks regularly, and if you didn’t measure up to the Empire’s glorious standards… 

Kallus winced. He’d been responsible for spreading so much of the attitude he wished he could rid the galaxy of. His thoughts absentmindedly wandered over the years he spent as an Imperial. He tried to find people he’d met in his time there that deserved the second chance that the Rebels had given him. 

There weren’t many.


	2. Lyste

It had been enough time for Kallus to decide that his avoidance of desk work in his Imperial days had not been without reason. He _needed_ to be back in the field, more than he could ever communicate to Draven. He looked back down at his crate, hands resting on the sides of the datapad.

Kallus carefully thumbed through the list of prisoners that command had just deciphered. He was supposed to cross reference the prisoner list with the list that the Alliance had provided him of people of particular interest. 

The work was boring but necessary. And it wasn’t like the Alliance was keen on sending him out again any time soon. He’d learned from his earlier excursion with Sabine that it was easier to just tell Draven where he’d been the first time, and not, as his Imperial brain had pushed, after he’d blamed everyone but himself. He’d just made an embarrassment of himself and the crew he worked with. 

And so, he’d certainly been flooded with an inordinate amount of ‘busy work’ to help him stay put. Kallus sighed and pushed back from his desk, stretching his arms above his head. 

Rustles of movement caught his attention. A co-worker stood from behind him, packing their things up, securing their datapad to a belt. Kallus glanced back down at the time displayed on the holopad. 

Almost 1700. Dinner would be served soon, and most of the intelligence officers would head off to go eat with their other friends. 

Kallus wasn’t in the middle of anything. There were perks to leaving. It wasn’t as if his job was the hinge that intelligence was pivoting around these days. 

Plus if he got there early enough, he could always come back to work later before the generals locked up. 

That sealed the deal for him. He stood, powering off the many glowing screens that lit up his desk. No one stopped him on his way out. He bumped shoulders with a few recognizably familiar people as he turned the corners of the old temple. Names didn’t come easily to him, but he could recall seeing a few of them regularly. 

He’d seen her in the mechanic bay, but not the Mon Calamari she was walking with. The person in front of him often frequented intelligence, but not as an agent. They might’ve been a pilot, but their jumpsuit was a duller color than he’d ever seen a rebellion pilot wear. Kallus enjoyed tracing assumptions, it kept his mind at ease, and ISB had always made sure he was good at figuring out who someone was at just a quick glance. The throng of the crowd flowed nicely into the mess hall as Kallus scanned for his next puzzle. 

He was met with a flash of bright pinks and purple waving in his face. 

“Kallus! We never see you eating this early!” Sabine Wren held up a tray of what was obviously the dinner of the day. Zeb appeared behind her, waving a hand in the air while trying to balance a plate in the other. 

With a light grimace of imagining the plate fall out of Zeb’s balance, Kallus put up a careful hand to wave back. 

“Looks like Draven’s just finally let ‘im out of the office for once, eh Kal?” Zeb finally held his plate with both hands as Kallus moved up into the line to start scooping the rations onto his plate. Kallus let out a breath with the shake of his head. 

“I don’t think that Draven’s going to be letting me out of that office anytime soon.” He raised his eyebrows to punctuate the sentiment. “If anything, I really should be getting back to work soon enough -”

“-And that’s a bunch of nonsense if I’ve ever heard it.” Zeb shook his head, folding an arm across his chest, threatening to send his plate flying _once again_. 

“- Yeah, come on Kallus, at least stay for dinner with the crew? It’s not often our schedules all meet up like this.” 

Kallus looked down at his plate, rounding the last corner of the food line. He glanced up at the door back into the main hallway. Was there really anything else he could get done today? Nothing that would convince Draven to field him again. He gave the Spectres a smile. 

“Alright then. It’d be my pleasure.” 

Sabine and Zeb shared a winning glance, and turned to walk over to a free table where Hera and Ezra were already eating. 

“-And then I said, ‘No, you!’ and I completely got him Hera! It was the funniest joke I’ve _ever_ come up with, today at least.” Ezra leant back to welcome in the others. 

“Sure it was, funny to whatever tookas you might have been talking to, because only a creature with a brain smaller than a loth-rat would find that one funny.” Sabine scoffed as she sat down next to Ezra. 

“Hey I got at least two of those x-wing pilots to laugh!” Ezra crossed his arms defiantly.

“Oh yeah kid, _pilots_ , the smartest of anyone we’ve got in this entire revolution-”

“You had better watch your mouth Garazeb Orrelios.” 

Kallus snickered with Hera’s retort, picking up his spoon to dig into the meal. The anxiety of ignoring the work he should be doing had lightened over his shoulders, slightly. Slightly, but still noticeably. 

Ezra launched into his next story at the other end of the table, as Kanan came over to sit down, and Kallus listened. He didn’t chide or poke holes in the stories. Well, except for the bit about “having enough room in an escape pod”, and that was certainly because Zeb interjected first. 

“Oh, enough room for Jedi training in an escape pod? I don’t think so, kid.” Zeb reached for his cup again, pointedly staring at Kallus.

Kallus blinked a sardonic expression back. “There’s barely enough room for one life form to even breathe in there, Ezra.” He turned back to Zeb. “And you _certainly_ didn’t make it easy on me.” 

Ezra had continued, with his story just a tad more grounded in reality. Kallus played with the remnants of some sort of sauce on his plate. He needed to get back to Intelligence. At this rate, they wouldn’t let him back into the place to finish up his assignment for tomorrow morning. Just so he could be given another equally boring task. He set down the fork. Kallus needed to go somewhere, do _something_ useful at least. He zoned back into the conversation. 

“-And that’s just about how I changed the style of painting I was going for from contemporary to something more deco for this evening.” Sabine beamed up from the end of an obviously very detailed art history lesson. Kallus blinked slowly, and seized the lull in conversation to stand. 

“Well, this has been lovely, but I really should get going at this hour-” To his surprise, Zeb stood as well, opposite from him. 

“Yeah, me too honestly. Got some work to clean up on the Ghost before tomorrow morning.” He leaned over, gathering the utensils he’s managed to spread out. 

Of course the Ghost was leaving in the morning for something. They were always getting sent out into the field, putting some sort of real work forward. Kallus tried to hide his disappointment as he walked towards the trash chute.

Zeb caught up to him in a few short strides. 

“So, how’s all that intelligence treating you these days?” Zeb kept his eyes forward, conversational. “I can’t imagine being cooped up in there is good and all for ya.”

Kallus leaned to the side, eyes glazed. 

“It’s a retreat after the Empire’s paperwork. But, I guess you could say I miss the field quite a bit.” More than quite a bit, but he didn’t want to let that catch on. 

“I wouldn’t worry. Being with the Ghost crew and all, I’m sure that Kanan and Hera will be calling you for a mission sooner or later.”

Kallus hadn’t considered that. The Spectres did lack a certain bit of _intelligence_ at times, but he’d figured they’d take Chopper or AP-5 in his stead. 

“That’d be wonderful. Of course, it all depends if they’d have me and all. I’m not sure anyone wants me off base anytime soon.”

Zeb paused. “Well, Sabine certainly did. Ketsu did. That stuff doesn’t go unnoticed, especially by us.” He turned to face Kallus, heading back towards the Spectres table. 

Kallus stood in the doorway, ready to head back to his room, doleful expression still gracing his face. Draven might not be able to see it. But the Spectres somehow could. 

***

“I have a feeling that you’ll come in handy somehow.” Kanan had said.

It was a quick in, quick out sort of mission. Leave at dawn, be home by dinner. Their mark was in a cell with a former imperial officer, so Kanan needed him. The Spectres needed him, just in case. He hadn't looked up whoever was in there. They wouldn't know him, he wouldn't know them. He'd just be another rebel with a mind to their codes and tendencies. 

On top of that he simply hadn’t had the time. Kanan and Hera had gotten the call minutes ago, and the rest of their squad was busy at the time, lending hands, stacking crates. The strike team was just the three of them. 

Yanseef Farr wasn’t a well guarded prison by any means. Kallus had checked with Kanan to see where they were going once they were underway. They were an Outer Rim slime pit, an old rotting dump that the Empire tended to turn an eye from where funding was concerned. 

They wouldn’t have updated their codes in years. Kallus could get them in without incident. 

That, of course, didn’t make the stormtrooper outfit any more comfortable. It pinched in weird places and the helmet blocked out far too much of his vision for his liking. He pulled at the elbows to try to give the under glove a bit of distance from his skin. 

“Comfortable yet, Kallus?” Kanan chuckled by the back of the Phantom II. 

“You know, contrary to what you might think, I’ve never worn one of these blasted suits before and I’m beginning to see why.” His exasperation was clear on his tongue. Kanan stifled a laugh. 

“Good to know it isn’t just me.” 

Kallus shook his head back in response. 

“Alright boys, we’re coming up on the drop zone. Eyes wide, go get them!” Hera pitched her voice up from the front. 

Kallus and Kanan assumed the most “stormtrooper” position they could muster, and walked off the ramp. They passed the first checkpoint, giving chain codes that certainly sparked a bit of fear in the ensign’s eyes. Kallus did allow himself to take a bit of pride in that. 

Left down the corridor. Right at section A12. Take the turbolift down to the prison bays. The pair stayed silent. Floor Zero. 

“The cell you wanted should be just down the way, on the left. If you stand guard I can probably crack it.” Kallus took the bucket off his head, holding it to the side while he worked on the main doors.

“Sounds good to me. You know who you’re looking for?”

Kallus paused his work as the door opened.

“If your information is right, I won’t have to.” He turned down the hallway, missing Kanan’s slight smirk. 

127-89.

127-90.

127-91. Here it was. A quick tap of the keys here, sever the wire here and the doors wooshed open, revealing two human forms, squinting in the light. One was awfully familiar. Kallus froze as the other human climbed out past him to meet Kanan on the other end.

He did not stir as they shoved past. His eyes locked on the other man in the cell. 

"You're still alive."

"No thanks to you, you treacherous scum." The man stood, walking into the red light of the room from the shadow. 

Lieutenant Lyste. _Former_ Lieutenant Lyste. That Kallus had betrayed in order to stay undercover for a few more rotations. 

Kallus bit his tongue. Normally he'd retort that sacrifices were necessary to aid the cause, because that much was true, but Lyste wouldn't know anything of anyone's cause anymore. 

He looked up at him, meeting eyes. They'd broken him. His eyes were sunken in, face dusty. Kallus thought back to the day they'd taken him. That he'd sent him away. He'd been so proud of his position, so proud of the power he was given to hold. And now he sat here, with nothing. Because of his actions. 

"Lyste, I'm sorry." 

The words came out almost a whisper as blaster fire behind them grew quieter. The world focused on this cell. He hadn't been sorry before. The ends had justified his means before, but now, seeing him here, filled with anger and hatred for everything he stood for, it was different. 

Lyste looked down at the shackles enclosing his wrists. His hands balled into fists, and he looked up, expression breaking into anger. 

"You took away everything I stood for, Kallus. My rank, my responsibilities, gone in a flash because of some no good rebel out to get me. And they won't even give me a trial now that you've been caught!" He tried to lift his hand to gesture at Kallus, but got caught in the bonds. "There is no freedom anywhere in this galaxy." 

"Then at least fight for the chance for there to be some. Lyste, you can do far more good-"

"-I will not join your ill-fated terrorist group just to please you, Kallus. I'm done with that." 

"At least come with us. We can drop you off somewhere. Anywhere but here."

Lyste flexed his fingers away from his hands. 

"What more do you have to lose. You have only to gain chance." 

"Only for people like you to rip it away from me again." Lyste stood, looking down. "Take me then. Take me to some backwater world where I'll never see any of you again."

Kallus nodded, pinching the cuffs, hearing them rattle against the floor. 

The sound of the fire fight outside roared into his frame of reference as he peaked around the corner of the cell wall. Lyste calmly walked out, not even bothering to scan the area. Kallus shook his head in disdain. The kid had nothing left to live for. 

“Kanan! We’re going to have one more coming with us.” 

“I figured we would.”

Kallus turned his attention back, shoving Lyste into a side wall, stunning the oncoming stormtroopers. Lyste’s sullen expression remained unchanged. Kallus grabbed him by the front of his prison jumpsuit, pulling him along the hallways, blaster out in front of him. 

With the Phantom II in sight, he basically threw Lyste into the hold. Hera closed the back gate, sitting with the other human he now recognized as one of her original pilot crew from Atollon. 

Kallus busied himself by folding the stormtrooper armor he’d been wearing into a pile on the benches in the back. He could feel Lyste’s glare like lasers into the ground. 

He finished, and slowly sat down across from him, folding his hands into his lap. 

“Where to now, Lyste? We’ve got a few stops along our route here, you can choose-”

“-Kallus you understand now that I have nothing to go back to. I can’t see my family without breaking my identity. You swept my life under the rug for your petty rebellion and I will not be any part of it.”

Anger filled his voice. At some point, Kallus’s apologies would never be enough. He was already familiar enough with that. He looked down at the datapad.

“Toshi Station it is. On Tatooine.”

“Suitable enough.”

Kallus stood, turning his eyes away from Lyste’s pallid form. He told Kanan about the stop they were going to make along the way. His tone betrayed more than he wanted it to.

***

The stop was ultimately uneventful. Lyste took the credits and disappeared into the crowd, hopefully to find a new life and better friends. 

Kallus watched until he couldn’t see the man anymore, and at that point, Kanan reached out to grab his shoulder. 

“His version of you will always stay the same in his head. His resistance to change is what makes him different from the rest of the rebellion. From us.”

“That can’t prevent me from wanting to change the version he knows.”

“The people that learn to care about you will want to watch you grow, Kallus. There’s forgiveness in finding a new chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> but I was gonna go to toshi station to pick up some power converters


	3. Hondo

“Relax Kallus, really, when has a plan of mine let us down before?”

Kallus pinched his fingers against his nose. There was the time that Ezra had thrown him through the data center, the time that he’d ran off with Saw Gererra trying to steal a kyber crystal, the time- 

He cut himself off. “Too many times, Bridger.” He waved his hand in front of him, stopping Ezra short of any retort he would come up with.

“So I suppose you’re wondering why we’re taking the Phantom II out to orbit today?” Ezra practically vibrated as he launched into his elaborate tale. 

“You told me it was for a routine low orbit check, but I’m beginning to have my doubts.” Kallus rolled his eyes. He’d been having doubts since Ezra had told him that he needed him for a check of _protocol_. 

“Well, see, I’ve got this friend, well, acquaintance more like, business partner maybe? Anyways, he’s gotten himself into some trouble and we need to go pick him up and drop him off.” Ezra made a point of trying to look like he knew what he was doing here. His voice cracks told Kallus a different story. 

He leaned back in the co-pilot’s chair, sipping on the caf he’d managed to grab before being forcibly pulled into this journey. 

“So why did you decide you needed me for this… incredible journey, Ezra?” Kallus looked over to watch the boy furrow his eyebrows. 

“Uh, you were just the first intelligence officer I could find?” He gave an apprehensive smile and a shrug. “Either way, you’re here now! Nothing to worry about, right?”

Kallus raised his eyebrows. There was much to worry about. 

Ezra finished typing in the jump coordinates, and just as he finished, Kallus allowed himself to sneak a glance at them. He almost spit out the caf he was drinking. 

“Jedha?!” He leaned forward. “You know that planet is Imperial occupied, we have no chance of getting even a parsec close to there.”

“Not without the codes that you’re going to figure out over the next three hours or so.” Ezra waved a datapad out from beside him. 

“Tell me who we’re picking up then, and maybe include why you didn’t tell General Syndulla or Kanan where we were headed.” Kallus looked over the datapad, obviously starting the work before Ezra had even processed how Kallus had managed to figure out that he hadn’t told anyone where they were off to. 

Ezra let out a breath, seeming to deflate from his commanding Lieutenant type of attitude. 

“It’s Hondo. Hondo Ohnaka.” He looked off towards the blues of hyperspace, avoiding Kallus’s baulking expression. “He said he needed my help! I can’t just leave him in whatever situation he’s in, well, I mean I could but he’s been useful to us before.” 

Kallus rolled his eyes. Of course they had to go after the smuggler. Of course he needed rescuing. Draven would never approve of this mission… which was why Ezra had stolen him away. If he was anywhere near his right mind he’d pull them out of hyperspace and turn the ship around immediately. 

He instead opted for a loud sigh and a discontented huff back into his chair. Smuggler or not, this mission meant something to Ezra, so he figured he would go along with it. Just focus on the data. This is for a better cause than anything you ever did. 

Ezra got up after a few minutes, leaving the ship to travel along the lane as he meditated in the back. Kallus had never really tried to understand the Jedi’s way of channeling the world around them, and didn’t figure he would start soon. Still, he occasionally stole a glance back at Ezra in the reflection of the glass paneling on the datapad as he worked.

What an interesting life to lead, being a Jedi. A focusing point of a cosmic fairy tale that The Empire had conveniently forced their hand in covering up. He was one of the last of his kind, a dying light against the dark times of the Empire. He must’ve been under an immense amount of pressure. To skyrocket from a nobody orphan on Lothal to one of the heroes of the rebellion was quite a leap, even for a jedi. 

Fame in the Rebellion was much different than being famous- well, more _infamous_ in the Empire. Kallus hadn’t been as well known as Tarkin or Yularen, and had tried to keep it that way, but the “ISB” in front of his number certainly had turned heads and ships into his control. Fame in the Empire was broadcast, it was forced onto young Lieutenants, it drove them to undermine their counterparts and drive away their friends. 

Kallus couldn’t help but think of Lyste, full of anger and betrayal, turning his back to him as he walked away into the setting Tatooine sun. 

Fame in the Rebellion was earned. It was congratulated. It was a mission that went well, gathering new forces and destroying evidence that they were even there at the same time. Ezra had certainly gained it for his stunts on Mandalore just a few weeks prior, and even before that just by being one of “the Jedi”. 

Kallus doubted he could gain any real prestige like that, he’d seen the ways that pilots gave him sideways glances in the cafeteria over breakfast. He happened to be very recognizable, to his misfortune, and even if he could manage to part with his beard he doubted he could hide his height. 

Ezra opened his eyes, and Kallus quickly shifted the datapad back. 

“We’re going to be coming up on Jedha soon. You ready to get cracking on this one?”

“Ready as you’ll ever be.” Kallus had gotten the location on Hondo set about an hour ago. Codes had proven more difficult to obtain since Jedha had the unfortunate habit of being up to date with protocol, but he’d give the one he had a 50/50 shot. It’d get them down there either way, it was just a question of if they’d get an unhappy little escort or not. 

The ship stuttered and the darkness of space surrounded them. Jedha peaked out behind NaJedha in the distance, bathing the cabin in an orange hue. 

The comm system crackled to life as Kallus spotted the light cruisers in the distance. 

_“Sheathipede-class shuttle, please identify yourself. This is an Imperial occupied planet.”_

Kallus took a breath in. 

“Imperial light cruiser, this is civilian transport shuttle twenty dash five six, requesting landing at point seven-six.” 

He cringed. He knew that Sheathipede shuttles were decidedly not civilian transports, but it was a better excuse than any other he’d come up with. There was radio silence for a few more moments. Kallus figured they were cross checking the database they had on rebel ships. He wondered if he’d accidentally given away their ship for any future missions. 

_“Shuttle twenty dash five six, you’re cleared for landing at point seven-six. We’re sending you in with an escort, please prepare your boarding credentials for when you land.”_

Kallus grimaced as the imperial hung up the call. He turned to Ezra. 

“We’re going to have company.”

“Well, only for a bit. Then we’ll be the company.” Ezra tilted his head and smiled mischievously. “Jedi, remember?” He pointed to himself. Kallus shook his head. 

“Just because you have a laser sword doesn’t mean you can attack all of your problems.”

“Relax. You’ll see - I got it covered.”

Kallus sat back as the twin TIE fighters took position on their wings. 

The descent down was quiet. Fearful. Kallus was just waiting for the call from the Light Cruiser, ‘actually we were wrong before! Shoot that traitor down!’. 

Soon, the landing pad came into view, hovering just on the edge of his sights. No surprise attack that he could see from here. 

Ezra brought the ship down steadily, stirring up dust from the landing platform. The two TIEs landed on either side of them. 

“Now we see if your plan will actually work.” The two of them proceeded down the ramp at the back, steely eyed, Ezra taking the lead this time. They met the two pilots at the front. 

Before Ezra could even raise his hand to talk, a call rang out across the clearing.

“Ezra?” A figure stumbled in the dark hallway corridor in front of the bay. “Ezra! My boy I knew you would come.” The one, the only Hondo Ohnaka paraded over from the hangar bay doors. He flipped a hand out, brushing the stormtroopers away from them. “You see, eh, stormtroopers, this is the rest of my crew! I told you I’d be needing them for our little… job you have me doing, huh?” His voice pitched down as he got closer to the one on the left. “I did tell you.”

Kallus sighed. How anyone could buy this fancy facade was beyond him. 

“Come now! We’ve got much to be planning!” Hondo practically twirled his back to the scene. The two stormtroopers looked at each other, shrugged, and followed with Ezra between them. 

Kallus pinched the bridge of his nose. This was not the way that he had seen this going, for sure. He caught up to Ezra quickly. 

“Did you plan this?” He grabbed Ezra’s shoulder, turning him around. 

“Of course not. But it’s Hondo, he knows what he’s doing.” A loud crash came from in front of them, with Hondo’s hurried apologies. Ezra grimaced. “Sometimes.”

They twisted and turned through loops in the complex. The stormtroopers took the lead at the front, apparently knowing where they were going, followed closely by the smuggler and his acquaintance. Kallus met them at the back. He categorized the turns in his head, ready to escape at a moment’s notice. Which he was sure it would come to. 

He stumbled on something on the ground. Apparently citizens here just left derelict droid parts strewn across the floor. Pity they weren’t more careful. Kallus looked back up to find his crew, but found only the two stormtroopers. His eyes went wide as he glanced around, only to be pulled across the hall by some invisible force. He yelped as he was forced into a dim inlet at the side. 

Ezra smiled up at him from the darkness. 

“You’ve got to stop doing that.”

“Eh. You’ve got to start paying more attention then.” He shrugged and turned. 

They were in a dimly lit room, surrounding a holo table. Hondo and Melch stood at one side of the circular table.

“Alright, so tell us the situation here Hondo.”

Hondo shifted unsteadily, making a small clicking sound with his mouth. 

“Well, you see, when I requested your services here, Ezra, my boy, well. First let’s start out with what the situation is. That would be swell, yes?” 

Kallus looked down questioningly at Ezra. He really expected to work with this pirate to leave the planet?

Hondo leaned over the holotable, pressing buttons along the edge. 

“See, these bucketheads here have been capturing us pirates all across the galaxy, and bringing us here to do some eh… jobs for them.”

“What kind of jobs?” Ezra shifted uncomfortably, voice pitching up. 

Hondo smiled. “Just transport mainly, but to keep us from eh, taking the cargo, they tend to assign us a partner with the deal that if our partner catches us doing anything… sketchy they get twice the pay.” 

“So you’ve been kept here simply because you refuse to give the other smuggler the glory of double pay?” Kallus baulked, furrowing his eyebrows. 

“No no no, you misunderstand the opportunity here, dear Captain… Sideburns.” He poked a finger at Kallus, moving closer to his side of the table. “We are going to report each other! Quadruple the profit!” He raised his fists in the air. Melch squealed in agreement. 

Kallus let out a sigh. “Hondo, why did you need us here for this? Since you’ve got such a grand plan here.”

Hondo brought his hands down, shrugging. “We needed a ship.”

***

Twenty minutes later they were loading a very large crate into the back of the Phantom II, with Kallus’s cobbled together fake names and credentials holding them up by a thread. 

He was still rushing to finish writing out a name when they’d been approached by the stormtrooper guards at the bay, but luckily, they seemed to think that whatever sorry excuse of vowels he’d typed out was a name. He followed the crate up and into the back, squeezing around the suddenly-very-packed interior. 

Hondo and Ezra had already taken up the controls at the helm of the ship, so Kallus found his spot leaned up against the bulk of the crate. It held some familiarity to it, being a similar material to his desk and all. He allowed himself a smile, thinking about all the work he was avoiding back in intelligence. Kallus had to admit, he did miss being out in the field here, even if they had to bring some smuggler along with them. 

The stormtroopers exited the ship, thankfully uneventfully, and Ezra brought up the ramp, closing them into the interior. 

“This is shuttle two zero dash five six, requesting clearance for lift off.” Ezra lifted the comm up, putting on the fakest inner core accent Kallus had heard in years. 

_“Shuttle two zero, please check in both parties accompanying the asset.”_

Ezra handed the microphone over jovially to Hondo. 

“All yours!”

“Ah yes, this is the other party here, what is it that you require?”

_“Check in complete. Please proceed to take off coordinates to receive your destination information.”_

The ship lifted off the ground, and Kallus felt the engines shifting the pull of gravity away from him. He eyed the large box behind him, and out of curiosity, initiated a scan with the datapad they’d been given. 

The dark of space closed around them as they cleared the upper atmosphere, and Ezra pulled into the assigned coordinates. 

“Alright everyone, we’re here. Now all we need to do is sit back and wait, huh?” Ezra punctuated his point by leaning back in his seat. 

Kallus continued watching the scan. The crate contained weapons of some sort, and some sort of tracking device. He’d figured as much. He could wait to get more information on each while Ezra waited for the call. Hondo fidgeted. Melch squealed something. Hondo responded with a sarcastic quip that Ezra laughed at. 

A hologram popped up at the front, Ezra sat up wildly, and punched in the hastily given coordinates, and they were off with a “See you later, suckers!” from Hondo. 

They all let out a breath as they pulled away from the imperial occupied planet, leaving their captors in the dust. 

The scan finished. Kallus read over the details. His eyes widened. 

“See, I told you guys it’d be _nothing_ of a hassle. Now all we gotta do is-” Kallus threw a hand over Ezra’s mouth, hurriedly making his way over from the crate. He gestured backwards and shook his head. Ezra pushed his hand down, and grabbed at the datapad as Kallus held it up. 

The tracker was an experimental device Kallus only vaguely recognized from the high rumors of the pilots. While it couldn’t transmit in hyperspace, it could record conversations and transmit them back when they were out of the tunnels. It didn’t matter if Ezra understood what they were working with. It mattered he stayed quiet, they both had the same thought looking at the datapad. 

Because the weapons they were transporting were disruptors. Highly volatile, not safe for transport on the Empire’s big capital ships, any change in pressure could upset their equilibrium and set them off. 

Kallus’s mind raced with the implication of what they were transporting. He’d made sure disruptors weren’t being used anywhere in the Empire anymore, and of course that didn’t mean some things didn’t fall under his watch, but he thought he’d been thorough. 

Ezra handed the datapad back to Kallus. 

“We need to do something.” Ezra chose his words carefully, gesturing to the data.

“So, what will we be, uh, doing then? Are we going ahead with the plan?” Kallus held up the data more forcefully. Hondo blinked at it. “Am I supposed to be getting something? I am not getting it. Are we still going to be turning each other in and then running?” 

Kallus and Ezra both hissed through their teeth, with Ezra reaching out to try to stop Hondo. They both paused, and turned back to look at the recording machine. 

“Okay, well now we’re completely screwed, yes that’s the plan, but we have to ensure that the cargo does not get to its intended destination.” Kallus took a step back, plugging the datapad in. 

Hondo turned to Ezra. “Was it something I said?” 

“I can reroute power from the system to… To something… To the ship? I don’t know. That might fry the systems.” Kallus was pacing. “How much time do we have till the drop point?”

Ezra glanced down. “Ten minutes.”

“Okay, and that should be time enough to…” Kallus trailed off, categorizing things in his head. His fingers flew across the dashboard, plugging wires into slots. 

Hondo glanced back at Ezra again. “I still do not know what is happening. Are we not still getting paid?”

Ezra shook his head. “Sorry Hondo, we can’t let this one get to the Empire today. And you were never going to get paid anyways!” He stood from his seat, presumably to go help Kallus reroute wires across the back of the box. 

Hondo sniffed. “And I didn’t think he could live up to more of my high, high expectations. Don’t you think, Melch?” 

Melch snuffled a response crossly, presumably because of the lack of getting paid. He had to put up with a lot from Hondo’s wild plans, and this one, honestly, was going no different. 

They had a minute left before they dropped out of hyperspace, and Kallus was still no closer to reprogramming the tracker to do literally anything but what it was programmed to. It was like the box simply didn’t want to comply. Time was getting short. Ezra checked the navicomputer again. 

“We’re coming out any second now. Kallus, we’re going to need another plan at this point-” 

The ship shifted, catching the end of the coordinates, and the white blues of hyperspace drifted to the black and gray of space. Off in the distance behind them, an Imperial transport loomed. 

They would not deliver the disruptors. No matter the cost. Kallus braced himself for what was to come. 

The imperial ship hailed them. Ezra nervously eyed the comm, but picked up. 

_“Shuttle two zero dash five six you are cleared for delivery at pod bay three, do you copy?”_

“We read you loud and clear, shuttle. Coming in now.” Ezra set down the receiver and maneuvered the ship so it could back into the imperial cruiser. Near the co-pilot ship, Hondo stood. 

“Well, I guess now is as good a time as any for a delivery. Melch?” The pig squealed in response. Hondo waltzed over to the side panel wall near Kallus. “And Sideburns, I’d hold onto something if I were you.” He smirked. Kallus prepared a retort, but didn’t get the time to. 

Hondo threw open the back doors into the vacuum of space with a dramatic press of the button. Everything not secured in the cockpit flew out of the ship, wires, wrenches, and with a heave, the crate of disruptors. Kallus grasped at the edge of the wall, hands slipping, grip trying to iron itself out. With wide eyes, he remembered _exactly_ why capital ships hated transporting these things. 

“Melch!” He yelled over the air slipping out of the ship. “The doors! Close-” Just as Melch got the message, a rippling thrum of an explosion rocked him to his core. Gravity returned as the door closed, just in time for Ezra to scramble back up to the controls, helping the Phantom II zoom out of range of the explosion, flames just trailing the edges. 

The stars stretched back, and they took to the hyperspace lane once again. Kallus found his footing, coughing on the lack of filtered air. Hondo jumped up alongside Melch with a joyous yell. 

“And that, my friends, is why Hondo always saves the day. You see, you owe me a favor now. Much better than any amount of credits we could’ve gotten for those lousy things.” He dusted himself off as Kallus sat back down on the back benches of the ship, trying to figure out what had just happened. 

***’

The Phantom II returned to Yavin 4 with a bit more carbon scoring than it has left with. Hera didn’t seem to ask _too_ many questions, but Kallus could tell that she’d have more later. Sabine, on the other hand, seemed very jealous of missing such a big explosion right in front of them. Kallus had to spend nearly five minutes just describing the sound it made to have her questions satiated. It was more intense than any interrogation he’d ever managed to conduct. 

Despite the jovial welcome, Kallus was tired out, both metally and physically. He’d come so close to failure today, and, he supposed, without the reckless efforts of the pirates, they would’ve been toast. And having been up since the early hours of morning didn’t help either, he supposed. He stretched from his interrogation spot by the door, indicating that he was heading out. The cool night air met him with ease, and from the humid interior of the Ghost it was a welcome difference. 

He caught movement by the side of his eyes before he heard Zeb’s familiar gait behind him. Kallus smiled up at him, turning as he walked out. 

“Here to see me out?” Kallus turned his head inquisitively. 

“More like here to make sure you make it back to your bunk in one piece.” There was almost a somber tone in his voice Kallus picked up. 

“But it’s not just that, is it?” Kallus fell into step with the larger alien beside him. 

“Well, you know, you’re not the only sentient here that wants to see every disruptor in the galaxy blown to smithereens.” 

Kallus hummed in agreement, turning his mental capacities back to the path the disruptors could’ve been following. 

“They didn’t even give us the information of where they were headed. Just a drop point. Of course, I could’ve traced the transmissions, I could have done so much more given more than just the ten minutes I had-”

“-’nd you did great with what you had. Sometimes we’re just lucky to get what we get.” 

They fell into a comfortable silence. Zeb knew that Kallus would still be turning over what he could’ve done differently in his head. 

“So, has anything come through your high uppity intelligence levels about Lothal yet? We’re all still on edge over here wondering if that’s even going to happen.”

“I haven’t seen anything cross my desk from Lothal particularly.” 

“Mhm. I suspected as much.”

“Your crew would be the first to know. It’s yours to take back.”

“And yours too!” Zeb elbowed him. “You’ve certainly got reason to want to.”

Kallus shook his head. “I feel like I need to help liberate it, of course, but I really don’t feel like I could ever go back there.” He glanced back up at Zeb for a moment.

“Kal, what do you want to get out of this Rebellion?” 

The silence of the tunnels descended between them. The question stunned Kallus. What did he want to get out of the Rebellion? He couldn’t allow himself to be selfish like that, he hadn’t, honestly. 

I want to see Lothal free. I don’t want to hear the screams of Lasan in my dreams. I don’t want to become numb to losing people again. 

“I- I’m not sure. I want to see the Empire toppled, just like anyone else here, of course, but I guess it’s something about choice in the matter. I didn’t get to choose, and I think that the people that follow us should be able to.” He looked out across the hallway. “And you?”

Zeb sighed. “I’m just here to make sure what happened on Lasan can’t happen again.”

Kallus avoided his eye contact. He still couldn’t help the wave of guilt that washed over him, hearing his friend say that. 

Zeb reached out, laying a hand on Kallus’s shoulder just as they reached his bunk. “And one of the steps in that is helping the people inadvertently responsible find their heart again.”


	4. Jovan

The Death Star was gone. Kallus played the night’s events over again in his head as he shifted in his bunk. He’d thought that sleep would find him easily tonight after he’d been up for the last- he checked his wrist comm- 23 and a half ish hours. But he was plagued with his racing thoughts, where they’d relocate to, and if they’d left any holes that the Empire could track them through now. 

Despite the feeling that they’d won, an overwhelming feeling of loss had perpetuated through his thoughts for the last few hours. They’d lost so many pilots over the battle of Yavin, so many he didn’t know the names of, but that Hera had tensed up for when she’d read the list that had not returned. 

Past that, Scarif, Jedha, everyone that they’d lost there. Cassian, the fulcrum agent who he’d just been playing Sabacc with a few weeks ago, gone. 

And then there were the few people on the Death Star he wondered about. Admiral Yularen had been like a father to him as he grew up in the ISB. He was perhaps the last person anyone in the rebellion would mourn, but Kallus didn’t have exactly the same background as the rest of the rebellion. 

There was a light tap on his door, breaking him out of any thought process he was going to go down. He shifted, sitting up in his bunk. 

“Enter.”

A tell-tale hulking silhouette of pointed ears and slouching posture filled the light streaming in. Zeb stood at the door, this late into the night, obviously still as much awake as Kallus found himself. 

“I was um. I was wonderin’ if you had the time for a quick sparring session?”

“Zeb, it’s 0400 in the morning.”

“Well it’s not like you’re sleeping.”

They’d taken up starting the mornings with a light sparring session after the Siege of Lothal. Kallus found it kept him sharper in intelligence, getting to move before working. And it certainly kept him from getting too ancy with desk work. 

The first time they’d dueled had been on the soft swaying plains of Lothal, when Zeb was still trying to process Kanan’s death and Ezra’s absence. He’d managed to unearth the stand-in lightsabers Ezra had used to train Sabine back on Atollon, and threw one to Kallus outside. He’d just managed to catch it curiously before Zeb’s first angered attack. Luckily, his reflexes hadn’t seemed to dull in his few months on Yavin. 

They’d attacked, parried, laughed and sweated until the early light of morning, when Zeb finally collapsed into the grass. Kallus had lied down beside him, listening to the light wind across the plains. 

_“Sometimes,”_ Zeb had started lightly, just above the rush of the wind, _“if you close your eyes and just listen to the grass here, it almost feels like we’re back on Lasan.”_

Kallus didn’t respond. Of course he’d noted the distinct similarities between the two planetary biomes, both plains, both full of braying wildlife. He took a breath in, and for the first time in a very long time, tried to remember what the planet he’d so thoroughly destroyed was like. 

_“Yes, Zeb. It does.”_

Kallus shook himself back to the present and looked to the side, finding his training bo in the soft light of the hallway. 

“I suppose you’re right. Give me just a few minutes here.” 

“I’ll meet you outside then, eh?” 

Kallus nodded, and the room darkened again as Zeb closed the door. He wasn’t quite ready to turn the lights on, and knew it would be dark outside, so he fumbled a bit for the clothes he’d been wearing earlier. His hands trembled, from the exhaustion he couldn’t feel, maybe from the grief he couldn’t process, even the relative cold could’ve been a culprit here. He steadied his hand on the smooth texture of the wooden branch he’d fought with for the past few weeks. He traced the bumps along the surface, where Zeb’s attacks had bared down on his counters. The ends of the wood were chipped where it’d dragged along the ground a bit too hard, sanding down the edges. He tightened his grip around the middle, trying to feel the nervous energy he had tightening in his core. 

The hallways were quiet, the parties of the night long over and the morning’s award ceremony hours away. His footsteps only echoed with his shadow. 

Out in the hangar yard, Zeb was leaning up against the Ghost, twisting the bo in his hand. He was backlit by the ship’s floodlights, again in the shadow. Kallus smiled. He always managed to count on Zeb to understand how he was feeling at times like these. He rapped the stick on the ground twice in greeting as Zeb perked up. 

He set his feet apart in a ready stance as Zeb approached, holding the staff out in front of himself defensively. 

“Hope I’m not disturbing your sleep schedule too much here.” Zeb started as he sauntered away from the ship, twirling the stick in one hand. 

“If you were you wouldn’t see me out here.” Kallus smirked. 

Zeb lunged out first, with a jab to his left side. Kallus caught the top of his stick and brought it up to the top of his reach, swinging his bo down with the motion. 

“You at least got around to enjoying the party, right?” Zeb backed away from the downward swipe, falling back into a defensive position, further away. 

Kallus scoffed. “I was, in fact, still working while everyone else was off celebrating.” He leapt forward, bo over his head. 

Zeb blocked high. “I’d expected as much from you.” Another low hit. 

“Someone has to find a base for us to flee off to tomorrow.” Kallus blocked aggressively, the force throwing Zeb’s stick back. 

“And it has to be you?” Zeb returned the force, knocking Kallus off balance. He stumbled back a few steps, still facing forward to watch Zeb. 

“It was helping me to keep from thinking,” he steadied himself “-about all this really.”

Zeb’s shoulders fell, the tension of the fight disappearing. “You, you didn’t know anyone up there right? From back when…” He trailed off. 

Kallus rested his weight on the staff, leaning against it. 

“No one worth remembering.” His voice cracked halfway through his halfhearted excuse. He hated it. 

Zeb’s expression softened. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t wanna. I understand.”

Kallus nodded, looking away. Zeb rapped his staff on the ground again. 

“Come on. Let’s keep going.”

Kallus gripped the staff again, setting himself in position. He would wait for Zeb to come to him. Of course he’d be the one to call him out. 

Yes Zeb, I want to tell you who I miss, but you can never understand my sympathy for my former comrades. I’m different now, I’ve changed, so I can’t miss them, I cannot grieve for them. 

Kallus shifted his position, striking out over Zeb’s right shoulder, with all the force he could muster. He felt the clash reverberate across his palms, striking electric jolts of pain across his wrists. He wanted to feel the adrenaline course across his chest again, but whether sleep deprivation or the sadness that hung in his lungs, he couldn’t. 

Zeb caught on quickly, maybe from the strength in his attacks, maybe still from where he’d refused to say their names. 

“Kallus,” he parried another blow, “what is this for?” Another block from his side.

Kallus gritted his teeth for a moment, thinking. “This is for Cassian.” The force in his voice surprised Zeb. It wasn’t loud, but it was forced through him, a thought desperate to get out. It was punctuated by another overhead blow. 

“This is for Hera’s pilots!” Zeb roared back, throwing his bo against Kallus’s. 

Kallus met his eyes, and smiled back, accepting the invitation. 

“This is for that two faced sleemo dog Yularen, and all his intelligence cronies that I knew!” Kallus took a swing directly at Zeb’s staff, held high above his head.

“For whatever team Cassian roped into bringing with him to Scarif, for all of them.” Zeb swung again, with less force this time. 

Kallus took a breath in. “To my enemies.” He brought his bo staff down to the ground, resting again. 

“To _our_ enemies.” Zeb echoed. 

Kallus slid his hands down, kneeling on the ground out of breath. 

“I’ll admit that I’m adequately tired now, Zeb.”

He bent down to meet Kallus at eye level

“It’s alright. I know you love it.”

_I know I love it because of you._

___

Three and a half hours of sleep was not exactly what Kallus would call a good night’s rest, but it was sufficient. He could pass out on whatever transport he was assigned to once the medal ceremony was over, and work until then. Again, not ideal, but someone needed to get their fleet scattered across the galaxy at a moment’s notice, and intelligence certainly had the, well, intelligence for that. 

It was with gratitude and relief then, that he found he’d been assigned to the Ghost. Whether it be the lack of sleep or something else, he knew it’d be Hera’s doing to force him to sleep, and not something he’d scold himself for later. 

When he pushed off from his barren desk with a bag slung over his shoulder then, it was with relief, and not dread, as he walked to the familiar ship at the back of the bay. 

Hera greeted him, Chopper tutted a few indistinguishable words towards him, and they were off with a fairly empty ship. Zeb and the others had been very nice on base to accommodate her through her pregnancy and all, but the ship was just the three of them tonight (well, four if Chopper was being the handful that he was known to be). Kallus sat in the main galley, still parsing the data they were given, checking off boxes with tasks they’d completed. Hera soon entered the room, clouded lines of hyperspace peeking in through the cockpit doors. 

“You settling in?” She smiled up at him, turning towards their small onboard kitchen mugs. 

“Enough.” Kallus didn’t glance up from his checklist, the world a bit fuzzy at its edges. 

Soft clinks of whatever ceramic Hera selected filled the silence between them. 

“We’ve got a small detour before we set down with the rest of the fleet. I’m sure Draven had it that you were filled in before you left?”

Kallus perked up. “No, I hadn’t caught wind of anything.”

“Hm.” Hera brought her mug over to sit at the table by Kallus. “I thought you intelligence types always knew everything we had going on.” She laughed a bit before bringing up a set of holotransmissions. 

The screen in front of her showed a few unfamiliar faces. The red words glared out below, detailing their name, number, and location.

“Are we going to retrieve them?” Kallus tilted his head. They were all on the same ship, but not many of their informants tended to be in the same place at one time. If anything it was concerning. 

Hera tilted her head back and forth a bit. “In a sense. We’re setting them free, not bringing them to our new base. They’re the officers the Empire marked for execution because of our little Death Star stint yesterday.”

“So we’re freeing them, but with what to gain? Their support?”

“Their chance at life. Come now Kallus, not everyone has it in them to join our Rebellion.”

“Very well. What kind of operation are we looking at?”

Hera smiled at that one. “Well, one that you could probably manage with your eyes closed, Captain. We’re posing as the transfer ship.”

Kallus blinked. “And how did we manage that?” Getting a ship like this to pose as an imperial vessel couldn’t have been easy. 

“Draven said that it somehow came with the Death Star plans. Don’t ask me.” She threw her arms up, grabbing the holoprojector with the flurry of motion. “We’ve got six hours till we dock. And Kallus-” she turned back from her beeline to the cabin. “Get some sleep.” 

Kallus obliged. 

___

Light conversation wafted into the lounge area as Kallus brought himself back from his dreary nap. It seemed the world still slogged behind him as he tried to stand up from the cramped center table, where he’d apparently fallen asleep. 

His knee hurt. His neck hurt. He really was getting old here. He should’ve gotten himself to Kanan’s old bunk at least. 

The table creaked as Kallus put his weight on it to stand up and head to the cabin. Just as he was shaking out his leg, the doors to the front of the ship opened. He looked up to find Zeb sauntering in, armored up and looking for a fight. 

“Ah! Glad to see you’re awake. Does mean I can’t use the ice bucket like Hera had said not to do though, so I guess you’re lucky.” 

Kallus chuckled and then shivered at the thought of being doused in ice water. It would be almost as bad as waking up in the air conditioned ice boxes that the Imperials called a bed. Almost. 

He tried to flatten out his hair, combing his hand through it just to get it out of his face. 

“How far out are we?”

“About thirty minutes, give or take a few imp blockades. Enough to get you grounded from that nap you managed to take, at least.” Zeb scooted over to the kitchen with Kallus as he went to make a cup of caf in the meanwhile. 

“Anything else of note?”

“Apparently they picked up another prisoner we’ve got to dump off at some other rock.” Zeb punched in a few numbers on his commlink to project some data behind Kallus. “Guy by the name of Jovan Vharing. You know him?”

Kallus poured the caf he was making straight past his cup and onto the floor. He whirled around to stare at the holoprojection Zeb had up. 

“Unfortunately.” He looked down. “Sorry about the mess.” The mug clinked on the tabletop as Kallus reached down with the kitchen rag to mop it up.   
After sufficient clean up, Kallus brought himself back to the main table, staring through the face of former Lieutenant Jovan Vharing to Zeb across from him. One-eyed, still smirking Jovan Vharing. He took a long sip of the caf before putting it down. 

“I’m the reason Jovan is in there.” Kallus’ gaze did not waver from whatever object he was fixated on, maybe somewhere between Jovan’s eye and Zeb’s gaze. “I captured him at the academy on Lothal around when I was attempting to hunt down all of you.” 

Zeb leaned around the buzzing blue of the holoprojector, trying to catch where Kallus was looking. He didn’t try to notice that this was the first imp he’d ever heard Kallus refer to by his first name. 

“What’d the Empire want him in for?”

Kallus broke into a wicked smile, shaking his head. “Abuse of power. Embezzlement of funds. Really, I think Jovan was the first Imperial I met that actually understood what the system was really for.” 

Zeb laughed. “The first?”

“Yularen always struck me as the run of the mill military Admiral. And well, in the beginning it was different. We were just some extension of the clone army from the Republic. But I think Jovan always knew. He came from a high up Coruscanti family, so he always wanted power, from the moment we got to the academy.”

“And that became his downfall.”

“And it will be the Empire’s downfall as well.” 

Kallus didn’t tell Zeb about how far Jovan was willing to stretch himself to get close to power. He didn’t tell Zeb about how close they’d been, especially after they’d graduated Kallus a year early, at the top of his class. It wasn’t mission critical. That was the basis for that argument, right? 

Jovan wouldn’t recognize him and it wouldn’t matter. It’d been almost five years since his capture. Kallus had grown his hair out longer. He wasn’t wearing that stupid bucket anymore. But underneath everything, he was still the same kid that had been Jovan’s best friend at the Academy. Sometimes more. 

The proximity alert sounded through the cabin. Kallus had never been more grateful to hear the grating klaxxon and the flashing red lights. He quickly downed his caf, and followed Zeb straight into the cockpit, where Hera and Chopper were already buzzing in action. 

“We’re coming out of hyperspace very near something big, so get ready to drop in as soon as we get there.” Hera looked flustered as she moved about the cabin. 

The Ghost shifted, and suddenly, they came out of hyperspace, right along the edge of an Imperial Light Cruiser. 

Hera mumbled something under her breath while Chopper let out a few louder clucks. 

“This one might be a bit rough.” She yanked the yaw up while Kallus stumbled in the back, grabbing the wall and also Zeb for support. 

_“Shuttle oh-six dash ten please transmit codes for docking.”_

“Can they not see we’re a bit preoccupied trying not to hit them?” Hera finished swinging the ship around comfortably, coming to a standstill, finally, above the docking bay. 

“Transmitting codes now.”

Kallus pulled himself up on Zeb’s shoulder, dropping his hand quickly. 

_“Alright shuttle, you’re cleared for docking. Proceed to bay two.”_

Hera swung the ship around, attaching to the hull of the Light Cruiser. 

“Bring them home, boys. Nice and easy.” 

Zeb nodded at Kallus, and they both headed down the ramp to the cargo hold. 

___

As it turns out, trying to convince an entire Imperial Cruiser filled of Imperials that you’re here to transfer prisoners when you’re really here to rescue them does not, in fact, go over well with the captain of the ship. 

So a few blaring alarms, a ton of stunned stormtroopers, and a massive headache later, Kallus found himself in the hangar bay setting the emergency destruct sequence, just for the drama of holding the “do as I say or I’ll blow the entire ship up” card over the captain’s head. Kriff all the dumb protocol settings on this ship. 

Despite being short staffed from the loss of much of their fleet to the Death Star, the crew was still very much a formidable opponent. But an angry Lasat and an ex-imperial make quite the drop team, as they were about to find out. 

“Where we headed first? Captain’s seat or just down to the cells?” Zeb stuck his head around the corner of the hangar just as Kallus finished up the wiring. 

“I was thinking we would head for the cells. Really no use in talking to the Captain just yet.” Kallus pulled out his blaster, peering around the corner. “Are you ready?”

“Always.” Zeb smiled, his sharp teeth glinting in the harsh white lighting. Kallus couldn’t help but smile as they ran forward, taking their route doorway by doorway, working to stun the troopers that made their way down just slightly more difficult.

They entered the detention center without much resistance. Through the silence, the comm on the center desk rang out. 

_“Detention center, we’re getting reports that the terrorists are headed to your location. Detention center do you copy?”_

Kallus looked at Zeb and smirked as he pressed the button on the comm set. 

“Bridge do you copy? This is the detention center checking in a code three-one-one-seven-four.”

_“You can’t mean-”_

“We can. We’re looking at the report right now, in fact, and if you don’t want a code five-oh-three, then I’d suggest you activate protocol two eighty-eight.”

_“Right away sir. Of course sir. Bridge signing off.”_

Kallus took his hand off the receiver and laughed. He’d never, never thought that would actually work, but here they were. The entire crew set to evacuate because of some ill-fated problem with the self destruct sequence. 

“So uh. What was all that? In basic this time though.” Zeb tried to laugh along with him. 

“It means we won’t be seeing the rest of the crew anytime soon, but we will have to worry a bit more about the self-destruction sequence I set earlier.” Kallus turned to head down the cell hallway.

“The _what?_ ” Zeb yelled incredulously behind him. Kallus smiled. 

He glanced down at his datapad and started the extraction sequence. He took a breath in, and slowly let it out, entering the codes he would need. Around him, evacuation sirens blared as he stood, stoic like a rock in the river. Soon, the two doors nearest opened. And then the two beyond those. Zeb appeared at the end of the hallway to menace the ex-imperials into coming with them, but Kallus was set on his task. 

Another code that didn’t work. Kallus moved to the wiring on this cell. _Three more to go_. Red to red, yellow to yellow, and the door opened. _Two more prisoners to safety. Jovan has to be in one of these last two._

The first door opened an inch. Kallus frowned and looked down at his work, trying to deliver more power to it. It seemed to work. The last two doors flung open, and the prisoners rushed out towards Zeb. Kallus looked them over. _Strange. Still no Jovan._

He was turning to leave, picking up his datapad again, when he was met with the cool metal of his own blaster against his neck. 

“If you are to believe that I wouldn’t seize the opportunity of a code three-one-one-seven-four to act on my own escape, my dear _Alexsandr_ , then I’m afraid you don’t know me anymore.”

Kallus whirled around, knocking the blaster from Jovan’s grip, spinning to find himself face to face with his former friend, former prisoner. “Get that silly thing out of my face, Jovan. We’re here to rescue you,” he sneered. 

“Oh, sure, a high ranking ISB agent comes to my ship, all dressed down incognito to make sure I can’t recognize him, and wants me to escape with his little band of terrorists.” Jovan raised himself to his full height, crossing his arms in front of him. Five years in an Imperial prison and the man hadn’t managed to lose his charm. 

Kallus stood, making sure that the blaster was still far away from both of them. “It’s not a trap, if that’s what you’re thinking. I do not serve with the ISB any longer.”

“Certainly. And I’m from Alderaan.” Jovan reached out to Kallus’s shoulder, gripping the jacket fabric he had there. “You even have a little Rebellion Captain pin there to match the getup. You’d think for a few decades in the field you’d be quite good.”

Kallus tried to glance over his shoulder to where Zeb had been moments before. 

“Ah, ah.” Jovan forced him back. “Your team left. They have the prisoners they wanted.” He released Kallus from his iron grip, and immediately, Kallus turned his head back. Jovan was right, Zeb and the others appeared to have gone. _Just you and me._

Kallus turned back to face Jovan again, folding his arms. “So our mission will be recorded as a success, I’ll gain more prestige, and you will continue to fester down here without so much as a rank to call you.”

Jovan shook his head. “Can you not see it? How many years has the system left me to die Alexsandr? How many years have I been out of your mind?” He tilted his head down to try to meet Kallus’s eyes. 

“Oh, when did I capture you? Was it six years ago, no, I wasn’t to Lothal then, I’d still need to win over the Paradine offensive, but then…” Kallus trailed off, anger growing in his eyes. “I can’t seem to remember. Please, inform me of your sentence.”

Jovan set his jaw. “Five years, in two weeks. Then they will free me, I will become captain of this ship, and I will be a martyr for a system of the past.”

“So you will not be coming with us, to a future of prosperity beyond the Empire?” Kallus branched out here, since Jovan had clearly spent so much of his time thinking on this subject.

“Not on your silly ISB life. There is no prosperity beyond the Empire. There is only power, there is only control, and there are only the people that seek to possess it.” Jovan looked to the side. “And I am sure your lasat hire back there would be more than willing to tell you all about that.” 

Kallus’s eyes steeled over. “If you were half the man I ever was you’d realise that there is so much more to this galaxy than the subjugation of its citizens.” 

Jovan rolled his eyes. “I just saw an opportunity and took it for myself this time. Isn’t that all the Empire can ask for?”

Kallus stood his ground, watching Jovan try to pick him apart. Unfortunately, his commlink buzzed at that moment. 

“We’ve got two minutes until the self destruct sequence kicks in. There’s still time, Jovan. Come with us.”

The man opposite him gave him a forced smile and clicked his tongue. 

“I will take my chances with the Empire this time.” 

“You’ll die otherwise. You of all people know they have assassination orders out for this entire crew.”

“Then kill me yourself, first. Take the bounty, Alexsandr. Kill me, live with the memory, and tell the Empire you won.”

Kallus shook his head, and gave his blaster a twirl before placing it back in his holster. “You will die of your own accord then.” His wrist buzzed again. One minute left.

“Goodbye, Jovan.”

“I wish I never see you again.”

Kallus turned and ran from the detention blocks. This place, so foreign, yet so familiar. Every light cruiser was the same. Every year he spent on this ship, every second he’d spent on Lothal, it was the same ship that he ran through now, out into hangar bay two, just jumping onto the Ghost as it pulled away. 

Kallus looked out over the explosion in the distance from one of the gun turrets as soon as he was back on solid footing. The last of his squad, finally gone. He blinked his eyes, and furrowed his brow down. 

Padded steps with an odd cadence approached from behind him. 

“Did the rest of the prisoners make it on, Zeb?”

“All of them. Save for Jovan, but it didn’t sound like he was going to come at all by what he said.” 

Kallus blinked inquisitively. “You heard?”

“Enough. Sounds like a kriffing idiot if you ask me.” Zeb smiled broadly as Kallus laughed lightly.

“Every last one of them was. And so was I.” He shook his head, and fell into a comfortable silence with Zeb in the turret. 

Finally, Zeb’s curiosity took the better of him. “So… Alexsandr? Is that really your name?”

Kallus looked back at him, smiling somberly. “It was, before, to a few people. Well, I guess no one now.” It wasn’t worth detailing the lengths the Empire had gone to to erase his individuality, nor how his crewmates had known him as Alex right up until they had all died on Onderon. It would make sense for him to be known as Alex here, where there was no need to attach a rank as a first name. But it was too much, all too soon. Kallus wasn’t ready to introduce himself as someone different from what the Rebels already knew him as. They chose to trust Kallus, and with time, Kallus could learn to forgive Alexsandr as well.

As he looked across to Zeb, the cloudy lines of hyperspace falling with the light across his face, he felt the warmth of their friendship pooling inside him again. Yes, eventually he’d forgive himself, as long as Zeb would stay by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter's very angsty it's midterm season at university


	5. Zataire

“Of all the planets in the galaxy, you’d think the Rebellion could’ve chosen a _warmer_ planet to set up our new base on, really.”

Kallus swore he had five coats on, and was still cold. His breath kept puffing in the air as he moved around the Ghost, inspecting the carbon scoring on the hull. 

Zeb peaked out from above him, ears first. “And that’s the seventh time in the last, oh, twenty minutes. Honestly, I still don’t know what you’re talking about-” 

“-And I’ll remind you, for the eighth time, Garazeb, that you’ve got an actual fur coat on under that ‘one layer’ there.” Kallus shook his head endearingly up at Zeb. 

“And if you start complaining again I’ll just have to come back down there to get this fur coat onto _you_.” Zeb huffed a sarcastic breath out. 

“I’d rather freeze.” Kallus rolled his eyes, glancing back down to the scan he was running. 

“That’s not what you said last time.” Zeb put whatever instrument he was mishandling back down on the wing. “Or last week, or on Bahryn.”

“See Bahryn was different though.” Kallus crossed his arms with a smile. “There I didn’t even have _one_ full coat.”

“Ah, so five should be plenty for you here, see you’re warm now?” Zeb’s smile radiated down at Kallus. The conversation had trapped him. He had to admit the five coats weren’t enough or Zeb would continue the torment without stop. 

Kallus tilted his head to the side, obviously still considering his options. “Yes so five coats today, no need for more.” He eyed Zeb. Try me. 

Zeb turned from lying down to a crouch. “Oh, I think there’s always room for one more.” With that, he used his legs underneath him to spring downwards. Kallus had expected as much, with a sigh, and sidestepped Zeb’s attempt at flight. 

The great purple mass of the Lasat carried him right past Kallus, barrelling straight into the crates behind where he’d been standing. With a cracking sound, the box burst, and with it burst out an entire shipment of fresh meilooruns. 

Zeb’s eyes grew wide as he realized what he’d done. He let out a nervous laugh. 

“The fruits! Are they alright?” Kallus rushed over, placing his datapad on the ground. 

Zeb half heartedly held up a crushed meiloorun. “No regard for the guy who crashed into them, eh?” 

Kallus shot him a look as he shifted through the pile, looking to save any of the unbruised fruit. “Well, I happen to _know_ that the Lasat that crashed into them will be _fine_ until Hera figures out what he did.”

Zeb chuckled. “What we did.You could’ve broken my fall.” He smiled over to Kallus impishly. “We’re gonna have to get more before Hera gets back.” His look sobered as they both stared down at the sticky mess of crushed fruit.

“We could run to the Ison system and back in less time than she’s projected to be back in…” Kallus trailed off, trying to chart how long the jump would take. “I’m sure we could barter something of value for more fruit.”

“We can take one of the Y-Wings I’ve been fixing up in the mechanics bay. I’m sure I can swing that it needs a hyperdrive test easy enough.” 

“Are you crazy? I’m sure you don’t fit in that cockpit, with or without me in it.”

“Ah, we’ll fit. Besides, you got a better ship? Hera’s got the Ghost and the Phantom out on the mission.”

Kallus didn’t want to be caught off base. And more than that, Kallus did not want to face the wrath of Hera for crushing her shipment of meiloorun. But most of all, Kallus had very conflicting feelings about being stuck in the small container of a Y-Wing with the lasat he’d just managed to recognize he had feelings for. It wouldn’t be good for him.

“There’s no way you get me into one of those ships.”

Twenty minutes later Kallus was sitting in the Y-Wing cockpit, thoroughly squashed against Zeb piloting. 

“Okay, you’re going to enter the coordinates-” Zeb moved over to try to see him better, it seemed. All it did as far as Kallus was concerned was manage to get _more_ of his fur in his mouth. Blinking, feigning offense, he continued.

“As I was saying, you want to enter _these_ coordinates-”

Zeb mocked a salute. “Aye, captain!” He turned around again, making sure to lean back across Kallus again. Stars, this man was going to be the death of him. 

The jump should be about ten minutes. He could survive ten minutes. If he didn’t suffocate from his feelings first. He tried, to no avail, to hold himself very still to take in the moment, while still breathing. 

Thankfully, soon the gray outline of Ison appeared on the dashboard. Kallus peered through Zeb’s fur, past his ears that took up most of his view. He almost let out a breath of relief from his discomforted position. 

Zeb brought the Y-Wing down from the upper atmosphere, landing in one of the designated spots he’d received from the tower. They exited calmly, like they hadn’t just been riding like two junebugs on a summer night.

Zeb brushed himself off calmly. “I think our best bet will be around the market over there. They seem to’ve got a few bites to eat at least.” 

Kallus nodded curtly, straightening out his blaster. They left the landing pad, filing out past the attendant they’d left the force-forsaken ship with. It was about midday here, and the ruckus of the market soon overtook any signs that he should be worried about being caught. Kallus focused his senses on finding the fruit.

The row of merchants stretched out in front of them, storefronts bustling with all sorts of lifeforms. The old Agent Kallus would be concerned here, what with the Empire’s declared “unsavory” types running all across the ways in front of him, but this, this made Kallus feel more at home than usual. The Rebellion was full of strange creatures from all across the galaxy, each with unique perspectives and backgrounds. It made them stronger. 

He looked back up at Zeb. Well, it had certainly brought them closer together. 

“I think I’ll head inside a few of the shops. There could be a general store or something of the sort around.” Kallus gestured over to the edges of the brightly colored rows. “Plus I’ve just got to get out of this sun. No sense in showing back up to that snowball of a planet with a sunburn.” 

Zeb nodded. “Eh I’ll be around. You’ll be able to find me if you need me.” He turned to head off into the market, but paused. “Don’t beat up anyone important without me?”

“Of course not. Wouldn’t even think of it.” Kallus smiled, and tried to wave dismissively. 

He turned from the beating daylight sun to the cool shop interiors. Unfortunately, everything here seemed to be labeled in a local form of lettering that Kallus couldn’t seem to make sense of, so he figured he’d just judge by exteriors. 

A durasteel door with stone edging was his first choice. Sweet smells seemed to waft from the door, mingling with the street’s savory options. He hit the button. 

The interior was brightly lit, and full of confectionary sweet treats. Unfortunately, not what he was looking for. He waved to the store tender behind the counter, quickly asking if they’d know where he could find a few meilooruns. The store tender hissed out that they didn’t know, and that was enough to send Kallus on his way. 

The bright sun greeted him again as he headed outside, opting to wander through the streets more, simply enjoying the welcome warmth and atmosphere a bit longer. 

He spotted the next shop from across the street. Curiously, the local lettering was written out above a series of carefully cut aurebesh. Almost Imperial in rigidity. Very out of place for this sort of town. Of course, he had to investigate, despite the lettering reading _“Closed, Keep Out.”_

Kallus knew how to avoid the gaze of locals. He browsed, fidgeted, and shuffled over to the door, making quick work of the lock system, and slipping into the cool air of the shop. The door closed behind him, his eyes adjusting to the dim orange lighting. 

Something shuffled behind a counter to his left. Kallus turned his head from the shelves, hand on his blaster. 

“Can you not read the sign? I swear…” 

The voice was deep, accented. Coruscanti, almost, but it had a different lilt. It sounded too familiar, and Kallus squinted, trying to see the man behind the counter. He shifted forward as the man stood up. 

“You can’t just barge into any establishment here…” His voice trailed off as he turned to face Kallus, turning a shade darker under a heavy beard. 

The man gulped. “A-Agent Kallus.” 

Kallus desperately tried to connect the dots. The man had obviously been Imperial at some point, enough to recognize him, but not high enough to learn of his defection years ago. 

The man was going to run. His stance leaned back, and in a flurry of motion, he was sprinting to the back of the store. 

Kallus reached out with his hand. “Wait-”, he tried to exclaim, but he was already running. “I don’t know who you are and I’m not here for you!”

The man crouched behind a shelf, putting the canisters of whatever rations between him and Kallus. “How convenient then, that you’ve found me here. I know the Empire’s been tracking me for months now. I don’t pretend my leave of absence went unnoticed.” The man had turned the corner of the shop, standing by the door. He was holding a blaster out at Kallus. 

Kallus threw his arms up instinctively. “How curious then, that you did not hear of mine.”

“I know your tricks, Agent. I did not forget how many times you held things above my head to steal my ship for your own doings.”

That was the piece Kallus needed. “Captain Zataire.”

“As if you didn’t remember.” Zataire’s blaster waived downward just slightly. Kallus welcomed it as an opening.

“Admittedly, it’s been quite a while.” Kallus tried to maintain steady eye contact. Hiram Zataire, the captain of The Lawbringer, that he’d brought down to Lothal the first time. Zataire, whose son had been so openly critical of the Empire, stationed on Alderaan. Zataire who’d do anything to ensure the safety of his son. He’d used that against him too many times. 

Zataire eyed him with suspicion. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” His gaze fell across the rebellion insignia he had across his chest pins, to the shoddy holster he wore at his side.

“As much as I can be, Zataire.” 

Zataire’s eyes were still filled with suspicion as he lowered his blaster. “Then what do you want?”

Kallus shrugged. “Truthfully, I was here for a crate of meilooruns, but it doesn’t appear like the case is the same now.”

Zataire waved him back over to the counter where he’d been stacking crates beforehand. “I believe I may have a few over here at least.” 

The two silently shuffled over to the counter, tension still hanging. Zataire looked over his datapad carefully, reading the sharp aurebesh on the screen. 

Kallus’s mind burned with questions. “Was your son on Alderaan when they hit it, Zataire?” He almost whispered it. It was a bit too deep for where they stood, across from each other. 

Zataire flicked up from the datapad briefly, and back down. He stayed silent, letting the question fester. 

“Yes.” It was final. It was reason enough. It was why he left, his familial loyalty. How could Zataire serve the organization that killed his son?

The silence returned. Zataire soon set down the blue light of the datapad. “You’re with the rebellion, aren’t you?” 

Kallus nodded. “They don’t want anything to do with you, don’t worry. You’re free to live here, without any governing party knowing you are here.” 

Zataire shook his head. “That’s not why I ask. I…” He trailed off, looking to the side, as if steeling himself for the rest of his sentence. “I would like to help.” 

Kallus looked up, a slight smile finding its way to his face. “Well, you’re certainly in the right system.” He straightened up. “Of all the places in the galaxy to hide out on, you somehow chose the one system where we happen to be hiding.” 

Zataire smiled. “It’s the will of the force then.”

Kallus gestured to the datapad, putting in a few coordinates. “You’ll be able to find us here. Tell them that Fulcrum sent you.” Zataire took the datapad back carefully and paused, reading the coordinates, tracing the location in his head. 

“Meilooruns should be out by Bankir’s stall. They’re the soft hearted torgruta out there. If you’re nice he’ll give you a discount.” Zataire turned to leave the front counter. “I’ll be at your base soon enough. I’ve got a few more coats to pack first.”

Kallus huffed a laugh. “I wish I’d brought more than the five I already have.” He turned to the door. “It’ll be good to have such a skilled captain as you Zataire.”

The man nodded, turning away. “I suppose I’ll see you later then, Kallus.” The door to the back of the store swung open, and closed behind him. Kallus sat in the stillness of the room, taking in the interaction he’d just maneuvered through, and headed out the door. 

The sun was much brighter than he’d remembered outside. He held his forearm up, trying to block out half the light hitting his face. The togruta Zataire had referred to him stood across the street. Arms crossed across their chest, bickering with a familiar, very large, very purple customer. Kallus smiled, watching as Zeb tried to bring down the price a reasonable amount. 

After a minute, Kallus decided intervention would be necessary, especially when both species were capable of ripping the others’ arms off. With a smirk, he approached the merchant. 

“Afternoon fine sir! What can I interest you in today?” The torgruta shifted his whole body away from Zeb, who grumbled with a betrayed expression. 

“I’ll have whatever he’s trying to get from you, please.” Kallus gestured to the sulking lasat beside him. 

“And did Hiram send you? Good boy he is, I’ll give you a discount.” The togruta eyed Zeb aggressively again. Zeb brought his arms up behind him, miming surprise. Kallus tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a laugh. 

He ducked into the back of the stand, bringing out a large box of the fruits. Kallus nodded with approval, and transferred the credits. He lifted the box over for Zeb to carry. He thanked the merchant, and turned to the crate in Zeb’s hands. 

“I cannot believe you.” Zeb’s grumbling was muffled by the crate.

“Oh, I think you can.” Kallus smiled as they pushed their way back through the market, back to their Y-Wing. “I just think the better question at this point is how we’re going to get all of this back to base.”

The crate sat on top of Kallus, and Kallus on top of Zeb, who was piloting the ship, nevermind that he couldn’t see anything. Kallus could see enough, theoretically.

Eventually, they made it back to Hoth in one piece, and with only a few of the fruits bruised. They surreptitiously snuck the Y-Wing back into the hangar, bringing the fruits with them, placing the box right back where the original had been. 

Collapsing against the box with relief, Kallus let out a breath. It really was freezing here. 

As if he could hear his thoughts, Zeb made his way over, piling on top of Kallus and the crate. 

Kallus wheezed. “Zeb- ah- my spleen!” He coughed a few times once Zeb had moved, propped up by his elbows across the crate. 

He found himself smiling back up at Zeb, laughing at the sheer audacity of the rescue mission they’d pulled off today. And of course, Zeb was laughing with him, and they were so close, too close, but it was a comfortable kind of close. The kind of close that good friends share after a successful mission. Well, maybe more than good friends. Zeb caught his eye at the edge of his laughter, and Kallus held his gaze, inching closer. 

“Are you serious? Right on top of my meilooruns?” 

Hera’s voice echoed across the flight bay, stirring whatever kind of moment they had been having. She strolled over. Kallus quickly melted off of the crate, walking, red-headed, over to the side of the Y-Wing with his hands over his face.

“Ah, hey there Hera! We were just uh, checking to make sure none of them were bruised!” He picked up a fruit, tossing it up to catch. “They look fine!” He smiled awkwardly. 

Hera smirked back. “I’d sure hope they are, seeing that they’re fresh from the Ison System.” She gestured to the lettering on the side of the crate. 

Kallus walked back over. “Oh, don’t tell me you can read that too.” 

“More like I can just read a situation. Hope you had a fun trip, at the very least.” Hera winked and turned around, with Chopper popping out from behind the Y-Wing to cluck after her. 

“Oh, I am going to disassemble that kriffing droid.” Zeb lunged after the astromech, throwing hands at Chopper’s tiny mechanical ones. 

Kallus shook his head, and hoped Zataire would learn to love it here as much as he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did I dedicate an entire chapter to a person that gets mentioned exactly once in the rebels novel just because I liked him too much? Of course I did.


End file.
